Noah, I'm all in favor of your buying an iPod. I think that every kid in America should have one; it'd turn us into a nation of headphone-wearing introverts...but c'mon, it's the iPod! I've long toyed with making a list of my top five favorite inanimate objects, which would look something like this:

1) The Apple iPod
2) The Apple iPod box
3) The Leatherman Pocket Tool
4) The Pilot ballpoint pen (the old-school kind with the businesslike cylindrical cap, not the effete new version)
5) The Chrome Tangle Toy that I picked up at MOMA half a year ago, and which is currently sitting on my desk, gathering dust, but remains very cool.

I was actually able to update my iPod for the first time in months last night. For various dumb reasons, the version of iTunes on my iPod was different from the version of iTunes on my iBook, which meant that I had to upgrade. This caused me no lack of grief from my roommate, iWen.